The Princess Bride, Alternate Ending
by CimentSemantique
Summary: Exactly what it says. I do not own The Princess Bride; that is the property of that dear man, William Goldman. Thank you.


Last year, we were ordered to write an alternative ending to The Princess Bride using a few literary devices and ten vocabulary words. I had an unnecessary amount of fun, went nuts, and wrote this thing up...

--

"Dear sweet Westley!" Buttercup cried over the prone lethargic body of her beloved. "Wake up, Westley, wake up!"

Westley, after a surprisingly long second life, had passed into relapse again. Not far away Inigo was nursing the gaping hole in his gut, and Fezzik was tending to the horses. "We must run, Westley, the Prince is coming!"

The pirate, as expected, remained taciturn, leaving Buttercup on the verge of tears. "Lady," Inigo said rather stiffly, "We have half the castle coming after us. Perhaps it would be better to get a move on?"

"But Westley..!"

"We'll load him onto a horse."

Behind them the war cries of the sanguinary elite guard set all three conscious fugitives on edge. "They're coming," Buttercup choked, "All this running for nothing…"

"Then let's make it worth something!" Inigo said. Fezzik reached over and loaded the senseless Westley onto one of the four white horses and climbed onto the strongest himself. Inigo painfully pulled himself onto the saddle of another, and Buttercup stood for a while expecting someone to help her on. After it became clear that no one was going to lift her and they were getting impatient, grudgingly she clambered onto the last horse's back. "Which way?" Fezzik wondered.

This put a damper on Inigo's "run-away" plan since the only one who knew where the ship _Revenge_ was, was Westley. Westley was rather inconveniently out of it. They could of course head straight-ahead and hope that maybe, just maybe, they could reach the shore, but that really was pushing their luck and it already wasn't fantastically fantastic as they would have liked it to be.

While the group was pondering their horrible terrible luck the Prince came galloping up and surrounded them with a triumphant hubristic shout. "Count Rugen," he said dangerously calmly, "Is dead. Killed by steel," he added glancing at the sword at Inigo's side.

Inigo rolled his eyes. So far today Westley had died twice, he himself was bleeding due to his not entirely cautious killing spree, they had a nervous damsel in distress among them (he really didn't feel like being quixotic right at this moment), and now Prince Humperdink was going to kill them in the horrible shameful way only such an anathematic character as he could come up with. Could this day get any worse?

Buttercup screamed the answer to Inigo's unspoken rhetoric question:

"DRAGONS!"

Now I'm not actually sure if they _were_ still dragons back them, but from the looks of it there was at least one. It was great and dark, with elegant wings of black leather and blazing green eyes. Smoke seeped from its nostrils and mouth and distorted the light of the full moon (because remember children, there is _always_ a full moon in stories unless it's important to the plot.), dancing like an impish sprite before the terrified forces of the castle. _I just had to ask_, Inigo said, mentally bashing his head against the nearest tree. _That's almost exactly like pulling the "Make the situation worse" lever… brilliant, Inigo. Pure genius._

The four (or three? Westley was still trying to decide if he was going to stay dead this time) were saved from the unconscionable might of Humperdink when said prince was eaten alive, along with all his guard. "Well that was lucky," Fezzik said cheerfully.

Unfortunately the dragon had not quite sated its hunger with half the male fighting population of Florin, so it turned on the refugees. Screaming the horses turned around and galloped as fast as they could away from the great winged beast, and, heavy from its meal, the dragon could not give chase. So into the forest the group plunged, far into the woods and by some astonishing feat ended up back at Miracle Max's.

"Well boys," he asked cheerfully, "Did you have fun storming the castle? And more importantly, has Humperdink been properly humiliated?"

"A dragon ate him, sir," Inigo answered.

"A great black leathery one!" Buttercup added none too helpfully.

"Who, Sparky?"

"Sparky?" the three conscious travelers said in shocked unison.

"Yes, Sparky. He lives on the mountain over yonder. You see, Humperdink chased him out of the good sheep-filled pasturelands and into that dry hunk of rock, so naturally he's been nursing a rather nasty grudge. It's only natural for him to be vengeful."

"Naturally," Inigo murmured faintly before collapsing onto the nearest piece of furniture.

"Dear dear dear," Max tutted, "He's going to get blood all over the carpet."

--

Westley slowly opened his eyes. "How am I alive?"

"A fantasmagoria!" Max called cheerfully from the fireplace. "We found enough to keep you and your friend among us!"

He nodded over to Inigo, who was carefully sipping some kind of broth, several bandages clumsily wrapped around his ribs. "Would you like some too, dear?" Valerie asked kindly holding out a bowl of the stuff. "Yes, thank you… how's Buttercup?"

"Asleep, the dear thing. She's had a very rough day."

"I'll show her a rough day," Inigo muttered thickly over a spoon of liquid. "Try getting stabbed in the gut once in a while…"

"Try dying," Westley shot right back.

"Tch."

"I like this sort of story," Fezzik said, oblivious. "The ones with a happy ending."

A general buzz of consent ran through the small parlor.

--

The next morning the troop, fully restored and prepared to face almost anything that lay ahead, set out from Miracle Max's house. "Where will we go now, dearest Westley," Buttercup asked.

"Wherever the wind blows us, sweet Buttercup."

Behind the lovers Inigo and Fezzik (but mostly Inigo), who were not interested in this sort of thing, were trying their very best not to gag. It was taking a valiant effort because Westley and Buttercup were constantly making fawn eyes at each other a slipping out honey-soaked words to one another like all good, self-respecting young people of the time who are madly in love.

"The ship _Revenge_!" Westley cried out happily upon seeing the black sails.

"Are we to be pirates now, dear Westley?"

"I'm afraid so, my love. I'm afraid so."

Had it been but a few hours later or earlier there would have been a glorious sailing off into the sunset with the horses illogically left behind to be the free mustangs they had always wanted to be. But they would have to content themselves with sailing off into the early morning. And that was until Sparky came along, ate the horses, and sank the ship with a garish and colorful explosion.

--And he lived happily ever after, the end.


End file.
